Sarasota candidates make final appeals

For months, City Commission candidates and political parties have peppered Sarasota with calls, door-to-door visits, emails and mailers.

Election Day will be no different. Almost all of the six people campaigning to lead the city said they — or their supporters — are still pushing hard to get people to show up at the polls Tuesday, and will be making the rounds at key precincts.

“Won't stop until we have to,” said Kelvin Lumpkin, who was out walking the streets and meeting voters Monday. Linda Holland agreed, and said candidates are “banging on a lot of doors” and making calls while they can.

The candidates are trying to fire up voters for a race that has historically elicited a less-than-enthusiastic response from the city's electorate.

In the past two at-large commission races turnout averaged around 6,000 people, less than 20 percent of registered voters.

Sarasota County elections staff said they anticipated voter turnout would be on par with past years, though this year's absentee voting numbers shows a slight increase in interest.

As of Monday, 2,068 people have voted absentee — 945 more than the last city-wide race in 2009, according to the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections office. However, the number of early voters dropped from 1,111 in 2009 to 872 this year.

Who gets those votes remains to be seen, with final results released after the polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday night.

If the majority of people vote for one candidate, that person takes one of the commission seats and the two runners-up will enter a runoff election on May 14.

But if no one gets the majority of voters' support then the three candidates with the most votes will face off in May.

'A partisan push'

Local political parties and other groups, like police and business associations, have sent calls and emails encouraging voters to get to the polls and support the candidates they endorsed.

Although the race is supposed to be nonpartisan, both parties have been involved.

The political divide in the race was identified early on, and it falls along gender lines. Lumpkin, Richard Dorfman, and Pete Theisen are Republicans while Holland, incumbent Mayor Suzanne Atwell and Susan Chapman and are Democrats.

“There's no question that there's more of a partisan push now than ever,” Sarasota Republican Party Chairman Joe Gruters said, adding that his party got involved in Sarasota in response to Democrats “meddling” in the local races.

Sarasota Democratic Party Chairwoman Rita Ferrandino said her party has made some calls reminding voters that there is an election and the local club hosted a candidates forum, but overall they have been involved “as little as possible” in the nonpartisan race.

Republicans also said they are not too invested in city politics as Sarasota tends to vote for Democrats.

“We just don't want our candidates to be left out to dry,” Gruters said.